Agenda item

Decision number:

Decision:

211/2012

The Cabinet agreed to request the Chief Finance Officer to write to Lord Freud, Minister for Welfare Reform at the Department of Work and Pensions, and to the three Medway Members of Parliament requesting that they also put pressure on Lord Freud, to (a) tighten up the regulations in connection with eligibility to exempt accommodation in view of the increasing financial burden being placed on local authorities brought about by the lack of a cap on the amount which could be charged by providers for enhanced housing benefit; and (b) address the inequality and burden placed on this Council by the increasing migration of people into Medway, eligible for enhanced housing benefit, for whom the Council may only claim part subsidy.

212/2012

The Cabinet agreed to request the Chief Finance Officer to report back on the business case for seconding additional, specialist, support into the Benefits Team in order to increase the capacity for dealing with complex negotiations with exempt accommodation providers.  This would be on the basis of an ‘invest to save’ proposal as it would release the Benefits Manager to continue in her existing role within the specialist service, with responsibility for the quality assurance of the benefits caseload together with work in respect of liaison and forward planning in respect of Welfare.  This would enable the Council to maintain its stance in robustly challenging high rents, negotiating lower rents and provide for a robust case in the event of a challenge at Tribunal stage.

213/2012

The Cabinet agreed tosupport the following proposals in relation to enhanced housing benefit and instructed officers as follows:

a.      As part of the negotiations with exempt accommodation providers the Council should set out its expectations relating to outcomes and promote a clear ‘move on’ pathway/outcomes star programme (or equivalent pathway) with regular monitoring updates to enable the Council to track the outcomes for people in exempt accommodation.

b.     An enquiry tickbox questionnaire should be developed for potential providers of exempt accommodation asking the following:

                 i.      Questions about the eligibility of the landlord to provide the relevant support

               ii.      Questions about the premises – does the landlord own the freehold for example?

             iii.      Information about staffing and the roles of the staff employed

             iv.      Details of how the provider work out their rent costs

               v.      Whether the landlord had also requested support from the commissioning part of the Council

             vi.      Details, including training, qualifications etc of any support workers employed by the landlord

           vii.      Information about how the landlord could demonstrate quality in the support they were offering.

214/2012

The Cabinet agreed to (a) support the direction of travel, suggested by the Task Group, as set out in paragraph 6.2.13 of the Task Group report, in adopting a smarter, more cohesive structured approach to the commissioning of Housing Related Support for those areas considered as part of the review, and (b) instruct officers to prepare a Commissioning Framework for services and to develop a timetable to allow for the efficient, effective and equitable commissioning of services to reflect the approach endorsed by the Task Group and present their Quality Assurance Framework to Regeneration, Community and Culture Overview and Scrutiny Committee and Cabinet Members prior to implementation.